I'll Never Tell

 

 

 

Cashbox April 15, 1954

 

Mary Jane Johnson starred in the early fifties with Bob Atcher in the Faultless Starch Show, a radio program diffused on NBC.

In 1954, along with Elaine Rodgers, the Meadowlarks and the Villagers, she was on the Bill Bailey's TV Show "Town and Country Sound Parade"
 
In 1955, she was on WLWT-TV Cincinnati, soon succeeded in March by Mimi Roman. She then moved to West Coast to engage in radio-tv activities.

 You have to wait about ten years before seeing again her name on a record when two of her songs were issued on the Kapp Records album "Saturday Night at The Old Barn Dance" issued in 1965, supposed recorded live at WGN-TV in Chicago.

Candelabra Boogie

Jerry Lewis
Candelabra Boogie
1954

I had no idea that Jerry Lewis recorded so many songs. This just one among many others available on YT.

From Jerry Lewis - Capitol Collectors Series, liner notes
http://albumlinernotes.com/Lewis_Capitol_Collectors.html

On May 2,1954, Dean [Martin] and Jerry celebrated their 8th anniversary as a team on a special Colgate Comedy Hour, which featured a sketch recreating that first outing at the 500 Club. They closed the show by getting down on horns and drums and doing some heavy jamming with the Treniers on "Rockin' Is Our Bizness." The next day found Jerry in the studio as a Capitol solo artist for what would be the last time: After a smokin' tenor sax intro, Jerry belted out a fine rendition of “Candelabra Boogie” for posterity. For this brief two-day period, Jerry seemed to be a strong supporter of the imminent rock and roll era. Somehow, Capitol didn't place much faith in this unruly musical trend on Jerry's part and waited nearly eight months before unleashing it on an unsuspecting public on New Year's Eve, 1954.

On May 2,1954, Dean and Jerry celebrated their 8th anniversary as a team on a special Colgate Comedy Hour, which featured a sketch recreating that first outing at the 500 Club. They closed the show by getting down on horns and drums and doing some heavy jamming with the Treniers on "Rockin' Is Our Bizness." The next day found Jerry in the studio as a Capitol solo artist for what would be the last time: After a smokin' tenor sax intro, Jerry belted out a fine rendition of “Candelabra Boogie” for posterity. For this brief two-day period, Jerry seemed to be a strong supporter of the imminent rock and roll era. Somehow, Capitol didn't place much faith in this unruly musical trend on Jerry's part and waited nearly eight months before unleashing it on an unsuspecting public on New Year's Eve, 1954.

 
 

Stairway To Love

 

Stairway To Love
(Aiken-Salisbury-Davis)

The Poka-Dotts

Modern 945

1954

When The Saints Come Marching In

 

When The Saints Come Marching In
Rosalind Paige with The Nassau Jazz Seven

New Disc 1001 (1954)

The daughter of literay agent Ethel Paige, Rosalind Paige known in New York as a cafe and supper club singer made records between 1949 and 1957 (on Spotlite, Admiral, Adam, Dubonnet, Essex, Decatur Maestro, New Disc and MGM). In 1957, she married her manager, Carlton Cole, who was 25 years her senior. Carlton Cole died in 1959.

After her musical career ended, she became the agent of many well-known authors, actors, artists and celebrities, including Andy Warhol, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, George Sanders and Sybil Leek. She was the author of books, including The Waldorf Astoria Cookbook. She also founded and produced the magazine Cookbook Digest, Rosalind Paige Cole lived for many years with her mother in the Algonquin Hotel, before moving into the Waldorf-Astoria in 1961. There she became the longest residing guest at 53 years.

She died of cancer on February 20, 2014 in New York City. She was 88 years old, owing nearly $1 million in rent and meal charges when she died, even though she was worth more than twice that.
 

Lucy Mae Blues

Frankie Lee Sims (1917-1970) 

 

American singer-songwriter and electric blues guitarist. He released nine singles during his career, one of which, "Lucy Mae Blues" (1953), was a regional hit.

Sims was the cousin of another Texas blues musician, Lightnin' Hopkins, and he worked with several other prominent blues musicians, including Texas Alexander, T-Bone Walker, King Curtis and Albert Collins. Sims is regarded as one of the important figures in postwar Texas country blues. [Wikipedia]

Lucy Mae Blues

 

Collection of his complete Specialty recordings compiled and produced for reissue by Billy Vera and mastered in 1992 by Joe Tarantino at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley.

All tracks recorded in Dallas in 1953 and 1954. From these 20 sides, only 6 sides were originally  issued in the fifties by Specialty :

459 Lucy Mae Blues / Don't Take It Out On Me   
478 I'm Long, Long Gone / Yeh, Baby!
487 Rhumba My Boogie / I'll Get Along Somehow   

Shake His Hand

Peanut Faircloth

with The Log Cabin Boys



Shake His Hand
(Religious adaptation of "Shake A Hand")

1954

Charlie Raiford “Peanut” Faircloth Sr,
1927-2010

Born in Mitchell Country, Georgia, Charlie Faircloth had childhood polio which stunted his growth at 4’8.” This led to his nickname, “Peanut.”

He began his radio career at WNEX in Macon in 1946. While there, he also performed in a trio with future Hall of Fame members Boudleaux & Felice Bryant. His 1948-49 WNEX radio program, The Hoedown Party, was carried nationally via the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Country superstar Ernest Tubb heard him, brought him to Nashville and took him to Decca Records. Faircloth made his initial disc impact with a cover of Moon Mullican’s “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone” in 1950. Other Decca singles included “Mississippi River Blues” and “Coffee, Cigarettes and Tears.”

More....

Let's

Boston singer who had two singles on the X label, a RCA subsidiary in 1954-1955.  Other records are on Mood and Hub.  According to a snippet published by Jet Magazine (September 24, 1953) "Jan Strickland, Boston's gift to swooners over crooners, lives with his white manager and the daughters of the family regard him as a brother. "

Let's

Nu, Nu, Nu

The Taylor Maids

Bobby Pring's Orchestra

Nu, Nu, Nu 

Romano, Bradford (ASCAP)

Eureka 6752

1954

Eureka, the Gold label, division of Stanley and Livingston, Inc. Hollywood, Calif.

The Taylor Maids, three striking decorative blondes, were sisters who answer to the names of Pat, Beverly and Shirley Taylor.   They began their professional careers singing in army hospitals.    Said one sergeant, "Those girls were so darn pretty they didn't have to sing."     Bob Hope discovered them in 1950 and immediately booked them to accompany him on a Korean tour. Hope was so enthralled by the girls that when he made his TV debut he brought the Taylor Maids to New York. 

After four singles for Capitol Records in 1955-1956, Pat called it quits to devote time to her family.  Beverly and Shirley tried to find a third person to keep the act going, without success, and both wound up getting hired in Florida as airline stewardesses. 

More details can be found here

Dry Bones

La Cille Watkins' All City Chorus

Dry Bones

(Watkins & Bell Arrangement)

Cecil Records

314 Norfolk Street, Newark, N.J.

1954

 Also issued on Jaguar #202

Billboard ad, April 24, 1954

Born in Newark (New Jersey) in 1923, La Cille Christine Watkins started her musical career as a gospel and opera singer.  In 1954, according to Jet Magazine, she became a night club entertainer. She was singing the blues in five different languages.  (Jet April 1, 1954).

 Her long time partner in songwriting and music was Wilbur Bell (her husband?) who also recorded as Johnny Bell (Cecil and Fleetwood Records).

Toegether, they recorded spirituals as by the Watkins-Bell Singers for Bandwagon Records (and Arlington, its folk and race subisidary) in the late forties.   LaCille Watkins had also at least two releases under her own name.  The first on Jaguar Records backed by the Volumes. The second on Kapp, backed by the Belltones.

 Songs they penned together have been recorded, among others, by Marie Knight ("  Up In My Heavenly Home", Decca, 1949),  Earl Connelly King  : "Nothin'  ", King 5038 (57),  Annie Laurie : Please, Honey, Don't Go (Deluxe 6135),  Kenny And Moe (The Blues Boys) :  Yes I Will (Deluxe 6139) and John Lester And Mellow-Queens : "Getting Nearer  " (C&M, 1959)

   

La Cille Watkins & the Belltones

picture credit

For Sale or for Lease

George Jones

For Sale or for Lease

 1954 recording

(unissued at the time)

From George Jones first recording session, cut in Jack Starnes' living room in Beaumont, Texas, on a Magnecord home recorder.

"For Sale or for Lease"  shows Jones attempting to sound like one of his Texas idols, Lefty Frizzell.  It is actually this song that one can understand the oft told story that after listening to Jones sing for a couple of hours that night, [Pappy] Daily said to him that he sure can sing like Hank and Lefty, but "Can you sing like George Jones ?".      Harlan Taylor, October 2009

☆   ☆   ☆ 

After Elvis's concerts, the Colonel would have the announcer tell the crowd, "Elvis has left the building" to get the fans to clear the premises.

At George Jones's concerts, on the other hand, it got to the point where they had to announce that he'd entered the place.

Jones may be the finest country singer alive, but what good is that whiskey voice if you can't hear it.   Over the years George has had a serious problems with showing up for his scheduled concerts.  In 1977 and 1978 alone he missed fifty shows.  It got so serious that he acquired the unaffectionate nickname George "No Show" Jones.

In 1982 songwriters Glenn and George Martin penned a tune for Jones and Merle Haggard called "No Show Jones." Jones, of course, missed the recording session and Haggard recorded it alone. It's on their duet album.
 

Here is a tour of some of the fine arenas where George didn't show over the years.

 [follows two pages of places where George didn't show]


Quote from Vince Staten, Unauthorized America : a travel guide to the places the Chamber of Commerce won't tell you about, Harper & Row, 1990